Telefónica Vivo Launches Firefox OS Smartphones in Brazil

October 22nd, 2013

LG Releases New Firefox OS Smartphone – LG Fireweb

Telefonica announced that Vivo will sell the new LG Fireweb and Alcatel One Touch Fire Firefox OS phones in Brazil, starting today. Telefonica also announced that they will launch Firefox OS phones soon in Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.

Firefox OS smartphones are the first devices powered completely by Web technologies to deliver the performance, personalization and price you want in a smartphone with a beautiful, intuitive and easy-to-use experience that is unmatched by any other phone.

Today’s news marks the world’s first launch of a LG Firefox OS device. The LG Fireweb comes with a 4 inch screen, a 5 MP camera, and fun features out of the box like Facebook integration, games like Cut the Rope and a new way to discover apps.

Firefox OS has all the things you need from a smartphone as well as the things you want like built-in social integration with Facebook and Twitter, HERE Maps with offline capabilities, much-loved features like the Firefox Web browser, the Firefox Marketplace and much more.

Firefox OS features a brand new concept for smartphones – an adaptive app search that literally transforms the phone to meet your needs and interests at any moment. Simply start to type what you are interested in and instantly get a whole new customized phone experience based on your needs. You can discover apps to use once or download to keep, giving you a completely customized experience with the exact content you want, when you want it.

You can also find apps in the Firefox Marketplace, which already has popular global apps like Badoo, Box, EA games like Poppit, Facebook, KAYAK, SoundCloud, The Weather Channel, TimeOut, TMZ, Tuenti and Twitter.

New Firefox OS phones will have the latest version of Firefox OS (1.1), which includes many performance improvements and new features like MMS messaging. Existing Firefox OS users will be upgraded to the latest version soon.

Firefox OS is an extension of the Firefox desktop and mobile browsing experience that hundreds of millions of people know and love, so you can expect all the security, privacy, customization and user control Firefox always delivers.

Mozilla is working on Firefox OS with more than 20 hardware and operator partners to deliver a better and more attainable smartphone experience to first time smartphone buyers around the world, as only 21 percent of global mobile subscribers have smartphones (according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers).

According to the president of Telefónica Vivo, Antonio Carlos Valente, Firefox OS represents a relevant option to the smartphone market, currently dominated by operational systems controlled by large international companies. “We intend to offer a totally new experience to the customer at affordable prices and where the features and the evolution of the system will be defined by the immense Firefox OS developer community and not for any particular company”, says the executive.

Jay Sullivan, COO of Mozilla, states, “We built Firefox OS as part of Mozilla’s mission to put the power of the Web in people’s hands and offer the best Web experience possible. We’re happy to see Firefox OS gain momentum with partners launching new devices in new markets and developers around the world being inspired to innovate. Our partnership with Telefónica Vivo demonstrates the rich, new experiences offered on Firefox OS by combining the best global and local content with LG’s elegant new device experience.”